Communicating Clearly in the Wild Digital World
It’s not that we don’t know who we are and what we stand for, and why they should care. That’s not the problem.
The problem is we don’t know how to convey it in a language that lands.
We don't know brand strategy to know what is relevant to our business goals.
Like Theresa, most of us struggle with conveying a clear message in our online presence. Teresa is a sound healer and someone who heals with crystals and spiritual coaching.
She wanted desperately to communicate what she knew in her heart to be her truth; her knowing about healing, about life, and about our natural world.
Teresa was holding a piece of paper that she had torn from her spiral notebook. She held this piece of paper with conviction, hope, and passion. Her hand shook as she said to me,
“I just need you to get this....
onto here." And she placed the palm of her hand on her laptop and then to the computer screen to show me what it was she meant.
She was asking me to translate her heart into a digital language that people could understand and see immediately she could solve their problem.
Isn’t this what marketing is all about? Being seen and found by those who we are meant to serve? When we have a big message to share, it’s critical that we communicate clearly our gifts and expertise to those who we have solutions for and we love to work with.
Permission Marketing is skewed now.
One of my favorite gurus, Seth Godin, brought us Permission Marketing in 1999. That was over 20 years ago.
Godin describes the four tests of Permission Marketing:
Does every single marketing effort you create encourage a learning relationship with your customers?
Does it invite customers to "raise their hands" and start communicating?
Do you have a permission database? Do you track the number of people who have given you permission to communicate with them?
Would you have anything to say if consumers gave you permission to talk to them? Have you developed a marketing curriculum to teach people about your products?
The premise says that those who are ready to buy our services and programs will see us when we stand out because we have successfully conveyed our unique distinction in all our communication.
Back to Teresa
All she wanted from me was just to take what she had written on those pages and just put it on the computer.
She kept saying to me, "Just put it on there. Just please, please, all I need for you to do is to take this and put it here. That's all I need! Just that."
Her frustration was real. How do we communicate in a digital world? It’s not enough to just type what she had written in her spiral notebook on that homepage.
No! Communication in a digital world has become more and more complex. And more boring with AI & ChatGPT!
Seth Godin made it sound so simple, but his message has gotten lost. I don’t think he meant for us to PUSH our message relentlessly and without strategy to our audience through paid ads.
Paid ads are presented as the magic marketing bullet to get your offer in front of your ideal client. And they can. But they are expensive. A rule of thumb is to spend $2000-$5000+ monthly. Plus in order for them to work, you have to continue for months, even years.
Many businesses just don’t have the money to maintain a paid ad strategy for it to really work. But if you do and you want to go that route, then please engage someone who knows brand strategy for you and your goals.
Investing in marketing when you have nothing memorable to speak about is exactly why marketing gets a bad rap. Whether it’s video posting, website copy, or your Lunch & Learn Talk, your marketing tactics will fall flat if you’ve got nothing of substance and truth to communicate.
We each have a unique story that is worth sharing.
We each have innate gifts, talents, and wisdom that we have earned through our lives and even lifetimes, talents unique to each of us. It’s up to us to commit to doing the clarity work to emerge these gifts to see how we are uniquely qualified to solve a certain problem.
To show up authentically in our business, broadcasting a clear, cohesive message requires a deep understanding of who we are and what we stand for as it relates to our ideal customer.
The Three Must-Have Conversations
There are three conversations to have when building a brand.
1) Communication with Yourself.
This is the first and the most critical. This is where your power positioning comes from and makes your brand resonate with those you love to serve.
The people you don’t like to work with won’t resonate with how you do things, so it’s important to be fully expressed. Vet them out!
Our intuition and imagination are the God-given tools that make alignment with our true purpose possible.
Dialog with that ‘deep within’ where that still small voice speaks to us. This has to come first - your alignment with your true purpose.
2) Communication with Your Business
To communicate with your business, develop a relationship like you would with a friend.
Ask, “What is seeking to emerge?”
Don’t try to answer it! It's not yours to answer. The point is to wait, listen, and respond to the intuitive guidance you feel. You will get insight and direction, guaranteed. Be ready to take notice!
Check into your body as you contemplate your offers, what you spend your time on that day, and everything else.
What feels ‘light’? What feels ‘heavy’? Your body will tell you. Learn this language and you will have more fun and flow in your daily life.
3) Communication with the Market
Authentically expressed, you show up with a clear message that makes sense to exactly the people you are here to serve.
Now that you have something clear and compelling to say about through #1 and #2, put yourself in front of where your ideal audience hangs out and speak your truth.
These are new times when we want to gather, share and be real with ourselves and each other. Find those you resonate with and hang out with them. Be a guest on your favorite podcast, and invite your audience to a FREE workshop or mastermind circle.
The Bain of Distraction
What I see so much of today is a distraction. Try this tactic. Buy this program.
Our inbox and direct messages are beyond full of people trying to sell us stuff. It’s exhausting. That’s that push marketing I referenced above.
What if you simply and clearly invited your audience to an offer? Whether a free workshop, a free call or a program you sell, do you believe the energy you put into that offer will attract your ideal clients?
You will if you’ve built an authentic brand with a clear, cohesive message.
Because like attracts likes.
When you are clear on your heart's desire, others feel it too. They feel like they know you, and this builds trust faster.
It’s better if we write it out like Teresa did. She knew what she wanted to say. It was all on that piece of paper, but she just needed to get that message out there to be seen, heard and understood.
It's all about being in alignment and integrity. When it comes to communication in a brand, we must have alignment. We must come from a place of power positioning and be clear on what we stand for
When we come from that alignment right from our heart, even on those pieces of paper, then we have something to work with, then we have something to talk about, then we have words that can form the basis of what we put on that website in our emails, and what we post on our social media.
But it all begins with discussion and dialogue with alignment as the goal.
I’ve been thinking a lot about communication lately. What is the best way to do it within teams? How much do we really need? How much is outdated?
Is dialog outdated? Are meetings outdated? Don’t we need to meet with our partners and teams regularly to get clear?
How will we serve our people at the highest level if we are out of integrity?
How can we engage team members when we don’t discuss who they are, what they stand for, and how that fits into the bigger picture?
Thinking back to all the stories where things went awry, it was always due to a lack of communication.
So where are we now? What the hell are we doing?
Texting strategic planning on our phones? Planning a live event through Messenger? That's ridiculous, stressful, and it just doesn't work. Never has, and I believe it never will - that is until we can read each other's minds.
We still need to have conversations. Getting together, talking to people, brainstorming, and allowing the infinite creator to work synergistically between people is more relevant to today’s AI world than ever.
If we do it right, people like Barbara Bezmenova of Harmony Family Therapy will be found online.
In only six months after launching Barbara’s new website, she has a full roster of clients just from SEO organic traffic alone! No marketing - just a fully functioning website that is a marketing machine.
How did that happen? Because she answered those three critical questions FIRST:
Who am I?
What do I stand for?
Why should they care?
These new clients were directed right to her website because of the words she used and the brand strategy that is tailored for her business model.
In Summary
Unfortunately, we’re not evolved yet enough to telepathically put our essence on a website, on a computer, and it magically attracts those we are meant to serve.
No, not even ChatGPT can write your authentic content.
Communicating a clear message requires a point of view - what you stand for. THAT is what sparks the resonance you want and need to make that sale.
Communicating is as important today as it ever was.